WBW - The Commodore 64

[togwt]

It is 30 years since the Commodore 64 went on sale to the public.



BBC News - Commodore 64 turns 30: What do today`s kids make of it? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19055707)

[Ron Ketcham]

LOL! Do I remember that little box.

We used one when I was a partner in Hypex, a manufacturer of oil field production pumps.

Guy wrote a program and we used it to size the hydraulic pumping system.

It was a hoot.

Now, I am still computer stupid, after all those years.

Grumpy

[Ben@3D]

64k of memory. Why would someone need more than that? :ballchain:

[imported_RZJZA80]

My neighbor had one back in the day, and I picked up an IBM clone SX 80386 with 1mb of RAM and a 40mb HDD with a VGA monitor ... I was the envy of my street. BTW, back then, my computer cost more than $2,000.

[Ben@3D]

My neighbor had one back in the day, and I picked up an IBM clone SX 80386 with 1mb of RAM and a 40mb HDD with a VGA monitor ... I was the envy of my street. BTW, back then, my computer cost more than $2,000.



Ya, when 10" CGA(4 color) monitors first came out, they were over $2k. Just for the monitor.

[Ron Ketcham]

Well, Ben, you have demostrated that much memory is not required to keep functioning in the real world!

LOL!-Got ya!

Grumpy

[C. Charles Hahn]

Nice. I remember using both those and TI-99/4A systems back in the day. We`ve certainly come a long way since then!

[vtextc]

The Commodore 64 was always the love child of the media and the techies. I had a lowly Commodore 16 Plus 4 with a whopping 20k of memory and only an internal cartridge drive (no cassette player). Now that was a true relic!



Asif

[togwt]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/picture-galleries/9444056/Commodore-64-30th-anniversary-in-pictures.html

[Concourswanna b]

It is 30 years since the Commodore 64 went on sale to the public.



BBC News - Commodore 64 turns 30: What do today`s kids make of it? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19055707)



I remember the spiral-bound program books for Commodore 64 - 2 hours of typing, hit "run" and hear hear a telephone ringing.

If you had four hours or more, you might be able to program in a Pong-like game or something.



10 goto 20

20 if x = 5, then goto 30

30 sprite 3#;

40 if 30 = 10, next 50

50 print "Only three more hours of typing!" goto 60



etc., etc.

[DeanSweet]

My 1st computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000.... Apparently my parents weren`t rich enough to afford or didn`t want to shell out the cash for the Commodore 64 but my friends had them so I got to play with them as well. I now work on mainframe hardware/software for a living so it must have made an impact?! My 1st game I wrote was on a trs-80(trash 80) in my Sr year in high school where I coded up a golf game that had a choice of three golf courses, gave a brief description of hole(distance, elevation change, etc) and allowed you to pick the club and how high you want to tee up the ball then(i loved this part) randomized a number that was defined for the club you chose and gave you a distance. I did have the 1:100 chance of mi````ting the ball where you would get 15` and if it happened to be a tee shot it would allow 1 mulligan per 9 holes. Greens were the hardest part of coding. I would give elevation and distance and give you the option of how hard to hit it from 1 being easy to 10 being hard.



Yeah, I`m a geek. I admit it

[Ben@3D]

I remember the spiral-bound program books for Commodore 64 - 2 hours of typing, hit "run" and hear hear a telephone ringing.

If you had four hours or more, you might be able to program in a Pong-like game or something.



10 goto 20

20 if x = 5, then goto 30

30 sprite 3#;

40 if 30 = 10, next 50

50 print "Only three more hours of typing!" goto 60



etc., etc.



Used to love searching BBS`s (Dial-Up Bulletin Board Services before the internet for those that dont know). You could find lots of games. Only problem was that you had to print them out and hand type them in basic to use them. \



Here is another classic I would of killed for back in the day:

Coding Horror: Everything I Needed to Know About Programming I Learned from BASIC (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/04/everything-i-needed-to-know-about-programming-i-learned-from-basic.html)

[Concourswanna b]

If I remeber correctly, the next thing I got into after the code books was the cassettes - type "load", go and eat dinner, and by the time you came back, you could hit "run" and play the game. I think that`s how it worked.